A vibe check on 2024
The year in Substack stories, a final election thought, and looking ahead
Stories from across the state
Some of the pieces I published in 2024 percolated for a while — in the case of writing about my 2015 circumnavigation of Iowa, a long while. Many stories came with a few days’ notice. And two just dropped into my lap.
My most-viewed articles of 2024 were education-related:
My story about the Orient-Macksburg school district’s intent to proceed with its dissolution getting derailed with less than a week to go was linked on Facebook and it shattered my usual numbers. (I don’t do Facebook, and I don’t do Substack Notes either, so if you’re a “follower,” I encourage signing up for a subscription.)
I wrote about my mom taking a last walk through her school in Goldfield after the city announced plans to have it demolished. It was torn down at the end of September.
An analysis of Iowa school enrollments for 2023-24 explored the continuing trends of suburban districts getting bigger and the smallest districts getting smaller.
Vibes vs. coupons
There are many factors that contributed to why Americans voted the way they did (or didn’t) in the 2024 presidential election, but I am thinking about one in particular: People really, REALLY hate inflation.
To use a phrase already so clichéd it borders on hackneyed, it was everything, everywhere, all at once.
The Westside Maid-Rite in Cedar Rapids took the laminated photos of its hot dishes and slapped stickers in the corners with new prices — and then did it again. Taco John’s and Jimmy John’s, for a short minute, pasted numbers on drive-thru menus until new signs came in. Texas Roadhouse has raised prices four times in two years.
The maker of Mike and Ike candies, which engaged in an elaborate diversion a decade ago to cover up a decrease in the “theater box” size from 6 ounces to 5, skipped the niceties this time around and slashed the size 15% while raising the price 25%.
The election wasn’t just about the cost of eggs, something that’s severely affected by bird flu. It was also about $5-a-pound ground beef and the higher price of Cheerios. It’s about knowing the price of groceries or fast food or other goods by heart, or close to it, and then finding out that that price was now wrong — a very unsettling feeling.
The rate of increase may be less now, but effects remain all around us. A stark in-your-face example of decreasing consumer purchasing power regularly appears in mailboxes across the country, when new sheets of Burger King coupons show different prices.
Kamala Harris’ campaign thought it had good vibes, but voters had receipts, and metaphorically took those receipts and stuffed them down the Democrats’ throats. Decades ago, inflation helped bring down two presidencies (Ford’s and Carter’s), and this year, with Harris running on Joe Biden’s record, it happened again. It’s possible two or three generations of lawmakers have been sufficiently burned that they will spend decades yelling “NO! Stove hot!” when potentially inflationary actions are proposed.
(Meanwhile, as Americans argue about prices and half a dozen other things, China has been militarizing every island it can get its hands on.)
‘Semiquincentennial’ — how about just ‘250’?
Tuesday — New Year’s Eve 2024 — is 550 days before the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, our nation’s birthday. National attention has been lacking in commemorations of events that led up to the Revolutionary War, which started two and a half centuries ago this upcoming April.
I hope to sprinkle some form of American history posts on this Substack throughout 2025 and the first half of 2026. They’ll be the lead-up to July 4, 2026, America’s 250th birthday — and hopefully the country will be in the mood to party.
Correction
A previous edition of this newsletter misspelled U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ name.
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